
PYSO helps celebrate WQED-FM’s 50th Birthday!
On Wednesday PYSO Executive Director Bill Powers, Music Director Jacob Joyce, and PYSO Oboe Becky Mack joined hosts Anna Singer and Jim Cunningham to help celebrate WQED-FM’s 50th Birthday. Becky wowed listeners with her on-air performance of Telemann’s Fantasie No. 3...

PYSO & PMEA!
The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) District 1 Orchestra graced the Heinz Hall stage on Saturday, January 21 with an impressive showing of over 140 talented students from Pittsburgh area schools and 27 of these talented and dedicated musicians are also...

Grammy Nominee Imani Winds share expertise with PYSO!
Last night PYSO was honored and thrilled to have the Grammy-nominated Imani Winds for a master class and a side-by-side with PYSO students at Heinz Hall. PYSO students Andrew Nelson, Becky Mack, Jeong-woo Cheon, William Sun, Yunjoe Chang, and Nathan Choe worked with...

PYSO Alumnus honored by Hildegard Commission
PYSO Alumnus Hannah Ishizaki (violin 2013-18) was very recently one of five winners named to the Hildegard Commission’s National Sawdust Mentorship Initiative (generously made possible by the Onassis Foundation and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation). The...

PYSO Announces the Winner of the 2022-2023 Conducting Competition!
We are delighted to announce that the winner of PYSO’s 2023 Conducting Competition is Tadao Tomokiyo! Tadao will conduct Bizet’s “Prelude/Aragonaise” and “Danse Bohème” from Carmen Suites No. 1 and 2 on our concert on Saturday, February 11, 2023 at Heinz Hall. We also...

PYSO Music Director, Jacob Joyce and Executive Director, Bill Powers on air with WQED-FM’s Jim Cunningham
Jacob Joyce, Music Director of PYSO and Assistant Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony and William Powers Executive Director of the Orchestra discuss the Dvorak Eighth Symphony, Ballade by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet and Jimmy Lopez “Techno”...

PYSO Announces the Winner of the 2022-2023 Concerto Competition!
Congratulations to PYSO violinist Jeongwoo Cheon who is the winner of PYSO’s 2022-23 Concerto Competition. Jeongwoo will perform Saint-Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28 at our concert at Heinz Hall on Saturday, February 11. We would also like to...

PYSO Memories from Alumnus Richard Heffler (Clarinet, 1969-1972)
We recently heard from Alumnus Richard Heffler (Clarinet, 1969 to 1972)! Richard is a former private teacher of clarinet, flute, recorder, and piano who played, composed, and arranged for the United States Marine Band "The President's Own" in Washington, D.C. from...

PYSO Alum selected as newest member of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra!
Daniel Orsen (Viola 2008-10) has been selected as one of the newest members of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra! His first concert with the orchestra will feature him as a soloist on Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola. Read more here:...

#PYSOProud – PYSO Alum cast in Cole Porter’s Night and Day
PYSOProud – Grace Callahan (Violin/Viola 2007-11) who majored in Music Performance at Duquesne University and then received her Master’s in Music at the Manhattan School of Music, has been cast in Cole Porter’s Night and Day an off-off Broadway production at Elmwood...